Dota 2’s group stage for the SEA Games kicked-off yesterday, after the Arena of Valor matches concluded.

The group stage included eight nations, which were split into two groups of four where they played a best-of-two round-robin stage. The top two teams from each group advanced to the playoffs, while the rest were eliminated from the competition.

Group A (Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore)

Group A was won by Thailand and Vietnam, as both teams finished with a 5-1 record. Vietnam managed to win the best-of-one tiebreaker match against Thailand, which means they advanced to the upper bracket spot of the playoffs.

Team Malaysia finished in third place of Group A with a 2-4 record, while Singapore fell to the last spot failing to earn a win in the group stage.

Group B (Philippines, Laos, Indonesia, and Myanmar)

Meanwhile, Philippines took the top spot of Group B and advanced to the upper bracket of the playoffs. They finished with a 5-1 record. The runner-up team of the group was Laos who had a 4-2 record.

Team Myanmar ended their campaign with a 2-4 record, which got them a third-place finish in Group B. Team Indonesia finished at last with a 1-5 record.

Vietnam vs Singapore – game one

The first featured game on stream was a Group A match between Singapore and Vietnam. The Vietnamese squad took the early advantage during the laning stage and never looked back.

They won the majority of the engagements and ended the game early. After claiming Roshan, Trinh “458” Van Tho helped his team win the final team fight of game one by landing a 3-man Boundless Strike.

Vietnam vs Singapore – game two

The Singaporean squad answered back at the start of game two by getting the better of team Vietnam at the top lane, where their three heroes got multiple kills. Lukman “Luk” Yusoff Nooraznan earned a Godlike streak early in the game.

After taking down the enemy Chaos Knight, Team Vietnam started to gain momentum, which they used to get back control of the map. With team Vietnam’s front line being so tanky, Ngyuen “Datbb” Thanh Dat on the Drow Ranger was able to deal a ton of damage, forcing Singapore’s heroes to retreat.

Team Singapore managed to defend their base by making the most of their buybacks. But, in the process of forcing Vietnam’s heroes out of their base, they lost multiple sets of Barracks as a result.

Vietnam eventually won a hard-fought game two by diving into the Dire fountain, which prevented team Singapore from defending.

Philippines vs Myanmar – game one

The next featured game of the day was between the host country’s team vs Myanmar. During the 13-minute mark of game one, Myanmar punished the Philippine team by maximizing the use of their crowd-control spells and eliminated the Dire heroes one by one.

Myanmar constantly caught the Filipino squad trying to claim outposts, which lead to quick hero kills. This also led to a Dire base push that ended game one.

Philippines vs Myanmar – game two

Both teams were evenly matched to start game two. But, after Team Philippines won a team fight by the Radiant’s tier-one Tower, Myanmar started to crumble.

John Anthony “Natsumi-” Vargas had some amazing Song of the Siren ultimates on Naga Siren that helped set up favorable situations for his team. Team Philippines would continue to dominate the remainder of the game and earn the victory. By ending a 5-1 record, the Filipino team is now guaranteed at least a Bronze medal finish at the SEA Games 2019.

The Dota 2 action for the SEA Games 2019 continues tomorrow with the playoff stage. Both the Philippine and Vietnam teams will play against each other in the upper bracket, while Thailand and Laos will battle to stay in the competition. The first match starts at 9:30 a.m. GMT +8 and fans can watch on Razer’s official twitch stream.